 All right, the recording's going. I don't know. Oh, okay. Welcome we're starting. Well, I can do it too. Welcome to our second in a series of three workshops for related to special construction or basically we can interpret that as fiber to your library and all things you need in order for it to work correctly in your library. This is, like I said, the second of three. And today we're focused on special construction. And so we're we also I just want to mention if you've seen this before we're going to try a different tactic here we're kind of walking through this as if you were the library director and you've just watched this webinar and you're ready to get going and then talking about what what are the sequence of things that will be happening so you are going to see. Just to come on several times to talk about erate and of course this is Krista Porter and and she is our erate expert and then we might have a new face for you which is Becca Kingry who is from the O. C. I. O. and she will be talking about something called network Nebraska a little bit later on. So without I think we'll get started. Do you want to introduce yourself to holly. Oh, I guess so. There I am at the bottom. I'm holly walt and I've been working with broadband for faster speed to libraries competency of library directors related to technology and then support with working with now bringing fiber to the library. The library commission has just joined in with a big of grant that is the digital equity act grant planning grant for that and the library commission is on the committee or I mean a partner in that and also I'm going to be working to work on that particular project to so really looking forward to that because I do a lot with the infrastructure side of it and now I'm going to be moving. Also to do some things that actually relate to community and engagement of community and digital equity. So, let's go. So, so we were talking about special construction, we want to know what is it offer our Nebraska public libraries well it's. It's great because I would start a little non conformity we start at the very bottom here with the discounts for fiber installation for your library public library. And I think crystal probably mentioned that we have what 70% is the average discount from irate and if you don't know what irate is it's a federal program that is based, well, I guess, maybe crystal you want to give the talk on that. Oh, sure. Yeah, irate is federal program that gives discounts to schools and libraries, giving discounts on their internet service. So, and any equipment that you might need to make that internet service work inside your library. And I was actually just looking to see you're talking about the discount. I think the year that we're in in 2022 actually the average discount of Nebraska library supply to 74%. Woo. So it's gone up. So you'll want to check with us or if you don't know, we can let you know if what your discount is at your library. Just put it in the chat box or ask about it at some point that you know all libraries in Nebraska eligible all schools are eligible and do it with the help of the education and CIO's office. I, yeah. So anyway, the special construction is the eligible costs for and you think about it, it's building, it's bringing fiber to the library. It's the construction of the network facilities, the design and engineering and project management to make that happen. So this, this is the cost that is covered. So that's from wherever the note is out there where the fibers coming from to the wall where you tell it to and your RFP where the fiber comes into the building. So that's, but the best part is, of course, as Chris was mentioning is the discounts that are available for the library to receive and then the other part about that is, you're also bringing fiber potentially into a community that does not have fiber in it at all. And then from the point of the library, you're able to distribute to other downtown if you're downtown the businesses or on into residential areas. So we have, first off, the, you have opportunity to make some choices or you can do both we have special construction projects that can be initiated by the library, or by network Nebraska is, and that's why Becca is here to talk about that. And you can do both. And, but as it states in the last bullet, there are options, the options are there are pros and cons for both options. So, for the library, so if I'm going to let Becca go forward. All right, and as they said I am Becca Kingery. Previously, you might have seen Tom Ralfus up here. He has moved on to the NTIA so I took his I was his replacement. So let's talk a little bit about the differences between going with Network Nebraska and filing the 470 on your own and kind of trying to do this on your own. The only thing about it is you don't need to decide today. If you want to utilize network Nebraska, or do it on your own, just know that the primary thing for us is that you're under no obligation if we go out and if we take these steps for you. And then you decide no by rather do this on my own, you can do that the only thing that you do need to know is that you probably need to start right away, either way you either need to notify us or kind of start to work with your 470. If the library is going to do this on their own, they would need to utilize the form 470, which is handled through USAC, which they kind of oversee the e-rate program for the FCC. That would be filed by the local library to qualify for special construction. You need to have these line items on your RFP that designated costs associated with construction of network facilities, design and engineering and project management. And for it to be considered a valid bid, there needs to be a number in at least one of those line items. It doesn't have to be all three, but it has to be in at least one. The difference for network Nebraska is essentially we'll do that on your behalf. We will submit it as part of our state RFP process that's, I'm getting so close to finalizing right now. So we just need to know some basic information. What are the speech you want us to look at? Who is the contact and where specifically would the fiber be going into? Next slide. One of the important things that you need to note is there's going to be some differences in the billing. So it's going to look a little bit different. Traditionally, you go to your ISP, you say, I want fiber built in or, you know, they successfully potentially win your own, the bid for the RFP initialized by the local library. And they're going to win, you're going to submit an order, and then you're going to get an invoice for your upfront costs, which would be the e-rate discount. As we stated, the average is about 74. So, you know, if you're 70, you're going to get, you're going to get a cost associated with that remaining 10% of that invoice. If it's 80 or higher, you won't, you won't be charged for that build out fee. But then you will start to get that monthly rate current cost for at least the 100 megabits per second service. It's just lumped into one payment. When you look at network Nebraska, it's that same 20% or the e-rate discount plus the 20%, whatever's remaining for your build out. Plus, we charge or were charged by that internet service provider, whoever wins the bid for the transport portion of your bill, we would charge you the difference back. And that's again going to be for that 100 megabits per second service. Plus, there is a network Nebraska participation fee. Now this ranges anywhere from $56 for our smallest, our very smallest members to $225 a month. And that fee goes into other benefits that we'll talk about later, like access to the university network engineers, DDoS protection, and just kind of our backbone services. In addition, in addition to that, we have the network Nebraska inter-regional transport fee, and then the separate charge for your internet service. The only thing I want libraries to understand is over here where we've got the ISP is billing you one invoice. All of those same fees excluding the participation fee are still just bundled into one price. So we've only separated out, and that will actually be, it could be beneficial for libraries who don't want to filter later, and we'll talk about that in an upcoming slide. And I want to mention here when we were talking about the discounts, you get a discount on that fiber build, but you also receive that e-rate discount on the second item on both of these, the monthly recurring costs too. So whatever that cost is, we'll have your discount from e-rate applied to that. So you'd only, like, if your discount rate was 70%, you'd only pay 30% of the full cost. Exactly. Yes. Thank you, Chris. All right, and now let's talk about the pros and cons of both. The pro, overall, the monthly costs might be lower than network Nebraska, primarily because we're not charging, you're not, there's no participation fee, there's no dues associated with membership. You get to work directly with your service provider, and in some local towns or in some smaller, more rural communities, that's a great thing. You know your service provider by first name, and you already have that report built with them. One of the cons is the local e-rate file, or the e-rate filing does fall on the local library. It is your responsibility. So you're going to fill out your forms for 71. You're going to either, you're going to fill out your form for 70, and if you utilize the bare method, you're going to fill out the form for 72 at the end. If there are any service disruptions, that might not be something you discover until you come into work at 10 a.m. on a Thursday, and then you realize that you've got an internet outage. And then one of the last ones is that SIPA content filtering is actually required for you to participate in e-rate if you were utilizing this, if you're doing this on your own. So when we jump over to Network Nebraska, we handle the e-rate services on RN. So we will have you initialize a 471 because that lets us know what speed you want to order off based off the RFP pricing. But then from there, we take care of everything else. We also provide that network manage that's built into that participation fee, that additional 56 to 225. And that's where we utilize the university engineers in that same example that we talked about at 10 a.m. you walk in and your internet services down. Well, maybe that happened at two in the morning, and that's also already been isolated and recognized by the university engineers. And they're already working on mitigating that issue. They're already talking to their service providers to try to isolate and figure out what happens so that they can get you a resolution. It's out of your hands. You don't have to worry about that aspect of it. The SIPA content filtering, we encourage it for obvious reasons, but it is not required. The primary difference that you're going to see because your e-rate or your Ethernet transport service, which is the cost of that circuit into your building, Tom would utilize the pipe and water method. I mean, think about it. It's the actual wires coming into your building. You're paying for that. But the e-rate, the actual internet service is that on the previous slide, it was that 8 cents to 24 cents per megabit. That's where we're going to get the SIPA content filtering. If you're not filtering your internet, you would pay that higher rate of 24 cents. If you are, then it goes down to that 8, but we can separate those out and we can still file for e-rate on the transportation or on the transport services for e-rate. So it is a benefit because of the way that we build that. Another pro that we have is that we do have access to a certain number of Zoom licenses as part of an enterprise contract that was initiated by ESU 16. So if you are utilizing or would like to utilize Zoom licenses, especially the professional level, we can help get that service to you. We also have a connection because this is technically a research and education network. We do have that connection with internet too, which is a consortium of internet research and education networks, which gives you access to, there can be digital education field trips available. You have access to content that you might not otherwise have access to. That is another benefit because part of that also because of that $56 participation fee that helps provide what we call DDoS protection, which is a distributed denial of service attack, which is where you sometimes see servers go down. You know, Amazon went down for a couple of days because there was a DDoS attack. These are becoming more prevalent in our day-to-day lifestyles, especially as internet and technology is kind of paving the way of the future. So part of our service is providing a 40 gig DDoS protection service as a part of our backbone. Another cost that goes, that's another piece of what that $56 a month pays for. The con again is that we are potentially a little bit more expensive. There's several services that are bundled in, and it's less work in the end for you as a library. One thing I didn't get on this slide show in time is Network Nebraska is also affiliated with Edurum. Maybe you haven't heard of that. It is a part of the internet too consortium. And what that basically does is if you are an Edurum provider, which they can help you get it set up, but it takes a portion of your Wi-Fi and you dedicate it to Edurum. So if you have a local school that is participating in Edurum and a student comes into your library with his school-enabled device, he walks in and he automatically connects to that Edurum Wi-Fi. And that is a part of the Network Nebraska package. There are additional things you have to sign up for people you would need to talk to. But once it's set up, it would be a seamless process for you. And that's only available to Network Nebraska participants right now. And since you did mention that, that reminded me Becca, for those of you that are aware, we did a webinar about that last September. Well, 2021, so last year on Encompass Live, our weekly webinar show, we had, we're going to see here. Yeah, staff from University of Nebraska and part education, everything talking about that. So the recording of that session is on our, in our Encompass Live archives. So if you just go there and search Edurum, E-D-U-R-O-A-M. You'll find it and you can watch the recording explaining about how all, more detail about how that's working. And the really neat thing is that with the gear funds that were, that were approved by the governor, that went into a lot of the equipment that the schools would need to utilize Edurum. And so at this point right now, I believe we're sitting close to 64% public school participation in Edurum, which is great. Yeah, that is good. All right. Okay, so this is where we come down to maybe the dryer portion of the conversation where we're just talking about timelines. So as of right now what we would need you to do or if you're going to handle this on your own or if you're going to embark on this journey as a local, as a local library. You just need to start thinking about the bandwidth increments. Typically a good place to start because it does need to be at least 100 megabits per second, 100 megabits, 200 megabits, 300 megabits, up to five if you want to. It gives you a little bit of room for growth for hopefully if you get this into your library and it starts to grow, you have that little room if the demand keeps increasing. So it's that scalable aspect of it. So you would need to research and draft the key narrative for the forms for 70. I believe that the Nebraska Library Commission has kind of a general document that you can, you can fill in, you can cut and paste your specific information into that. Just a little bit. Yep. Yep. Yep. Crystal will, I'm sure she'll give you the download on that be ready to post your form for 70 you can do that now, but you want to do it on or before November 1 because there are a certain number of days you have to have that posted and if you're going to be working with the public service commission they want that information as you can see by about I think December 15. So for Network Nebraska, really we just need to know, again, that same piece of information, the speed you want to look at who the contact and who the contact person will be and then demographic information about the library where is it located such information like that. Our contracts are for 48 months so they are for a full four years, all of our contracts tend to do the four single year extension so they could be four up to eight. It says we will have the RFP out and posted on or before 10-1. I have some residual pieces of information I'm waiting for. I really want to get that to stay purchasing tomorrow. That's my goal. Again, there's no obligation to purchase. You don't need to decide today if you want to utilize Network Nebraska or if you want to do this on your own. You need to at least decide if you're going to consider it in the very near future so that we can get you on to the state RFP and we can move forward with our contract. And then outside of that it's the state contract will be with us. Another benefit of that is that if there are contract disputes, you have the power or the authority of our legal teams standing behind you, which is also another benefit. Outside of that, the Network Nebraska website is below. I believe my contact information will be at the end of the slideshow. Feel free to reach out for any questions. And I just want to mention here to the dates that we're looking at over there on the left side about posting by the November 1 and contract by December 15. Those are like our recommended dates. They're not like, you won't see them anywhere as an official hard and fast deadline. So you don't see that posted anywhere. This is our recommendation for if you want to get things going. I believe the public service commissions deadline for submitting their application is usually just at the end of the year, December 31. Does that still what they're working with Holly? I think that are they're very accommodating at this point. So, and that's what I wanted to add to we've actually had libraries who have gone done it later than that. And it's okay. We have these deadlines, but there is there is some wiggle room put into this is the process and we've had some that have done it, not even in this is the third year of this funding being available. And we've had libraries in previous years, but they didn't even get their forms done until into the next year. So until like the January timeframe. And we just reach out to your batch and give heads up saying, Hey, we've got one coming in and they're like, okay, we got our eyes open for it. They're willing to work with us. They've got this money that they want to give out so they're willing to do whatever it takes just to make sure they get it to the libraries. So, and that's up to 10% of your match. And so that's a, you know, it's a significant match for you. And I, the one thing I'm a little concerned about now is how busy they are. They may not be as excited about, you know, helping out, but they're very, they're, they're very connected with the library commission as far as helping us out. So should be no problem. Well, this, I'm glad that this is in here. What this is is the timeline for the special construction, the E rate works on a fiscal year, which begins July one and ends June 31. So this is just an example of the timeline for using, working with a library application on the bottom and network Nebraska on the top. And again, you, there's some flexibility in some of this, the deadlines from usack are, are hard deadlines, but this is kind of the flow of activity that goes on throughout the year. It's related to a special construction project. And I'll mention, this is probably a good point to mention too that don't turn, you know, if you're trying to write all this down, we will be providing you with the slides afterwards when the recording is grateful for this session. So you'll have access to all of this later. And I even have this on a, on a, just a regular piece of paper that can be posted somewhere if you need it. So, I think that's all. Let's move forward. We're now I think we're, we're basically the, there, there is a 470 RF, RFP associated with network Nebraska. And I don't know how many pages long it is. Do you know your contract that you work with. Well, we have three pieces, like three documents right so we have our, our, our, our, kind of our master agreement that all of the vendors who are available to have to sign and that's probably 23 pages. And then we have our specific RFP document, which is at this point, I believe we're sitting about 17 pages. And then we have our appendices that list out because, you know, we're not just building the special or bidding out for the other things. Yeah. We have schools and municipalities. So, but special construction are specific is specific to those eligible entities like library schools issues. So, we have those documents and those, I want to say right now our special construction appendices like 30 circuits right now and then the school one the appendix a is sitting at about 41. pages and more just like lines. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. Exactly. Well, but so anyway, what we have with the Nebraska Library Commission. A few weeks ago we started with an RFP that was generated kind of put together with a lot of advice and even some examples from other libraries that had worked with special construction and we came up with this template for our Nebraska public libraries to use. And we have for. And Chris is going to go on and talk about this, if you want to, you know. Yeah, this is just something that I popped in here. This is something that we've mentioned previously in sessions. When you are working on this project, this special construction, you're going to have to work with other people, not just the library. It's a major construct. It could be a major construction project talking about drinking digging trenches laying lines across your community across your city. So in addition to the RFP that we're helping you put together here, you're going to want to reach out to people in your community in your government, your municipality, the mayor, the city administrator, whoever it is you're supposed to reach out to when something major like this may be going on to make sure you're following their rules as well. And so, as a city administrator, the mayor, the city attorney being, you know, know some of the rules. It would depend on your community who you'd need to make sure you contact to say, hey, this is an opportunity we have. What do I need to know from all you people to make sure it's included in what we're doing when we're reaching out and starting to work on this. So just talking a little bit about the RFP here, and we are going to be short on time. I'm thinking the only bullet I really need to say here is the second one that basically it's required for strongly recommended for E rate program to comply with E rate state and then you're so it stayed in local bidding. And so we just find that it's easier to work with an RFP because that way you're comparing everything in a standard mode. It's a pretty complex project and so, especially if you're a library director who isn't familiar with working with this type of an activity and, you know, from my experience working with the libraries last two years they aren't. There's some comfort and even though you may not know what everything says in the RFP, you know you have a standardized response that comes in. And the reason for using it of two is of course when we're talking about this bidding process that you need to be engaged in also once you receive your responses. You want to be able to compare things that together and accurately and as they are the same type of responses. And this here for me this is just I wanted to show this is just a template so the RFP that we do with the libraries is just it's 25 pages long. And a lot of it is just fill in the information related to your library, your address, your contact people. The biggest thing here I have this on the front of the. The front page of the RFP is probably the most technical thing you have to do is insert either a graphic and it's optional, a graphic or a picture of your library or something on the front page. Beyond that, what was that make it personal. Yeah, exactly. That's that's the point but beyond that I as you go through I have things that you need to change highlighted in red. And also here's an example of a page, you know the library name is on it five times. And so, and it's a very important piece of paper but if you could just go in and do your find and replace that's great. One thing I do want to mention at the very bottom, when it has this little in red and it's on all the pages it's in red is that the bitter has read and agreed to comply. What happens is with the RFP sometimes when a company returns a bid, they don't really go back and look at the RFP except I mean they answer all the questions but they have their own template that they want to respond in. It's really important to understand that, even if they don't do anything else with that RFP will sign them the master page on the back, but they need to check these, these particular little items offer initial them because otherwise, we don't know if they're willing to sign that's important also. So I think what's good about this screenshot here that you did that I really like is, because I know the whole phrase RFP and that concept is the part that I think scares a lot of the libraries. I don't know about that I don't know how to do one. I don't know where to start. As you can see from here, we've got a template and most of the wording in it is the same for everybody and you just have to change those one spots that are read. So all this is prewritten for you most of the of the document and then you just put in, you know, most of it is already there. You only have to put in very little bit. So it's not really as scary as you might think. Right, you don't have to initiate and come up with it on your own and cover all possibilities. And, and frankly it took me at least a year before I was reading through some parts of it that I even understood what it was all about. Because it's, you know that the the fibers coming to your library but it comes from somewhere. And, and all of that part of it, you know, the, you want to be sure that you're protecting roads, ditches, you know, things return to the way they should be. Okay, so that's really what it's, it's all about so it's all in there for you. Yep. All right. So this is me. So this is the special construction here that we're doing this is part of the rate program. And anyone who wants to apply for this if you're going doing it yourself. Some of this is the things that as Becca said that if you're going through Nebraska they would be for you, but doing it yourself. Anybody applying has to go through the rate steps and this is the rate forms here. And I'll tell you right now I'm going to be very quick high level overview of this process. There are full E rate workshops coming up in later in October from usack themselves and in November from me I got a full three hour long workshop that I do. And the dates and everything for signing up for that is at the end of this presentation. So for the step by step of how to do a whole form. That would be the training to attend or look at. If you do want to do it before I have holding my trainings later in November that's okay I will also walk you through it hand told you through it on the head of time you don't have to wait for the training. And I know this is going to be a high points of these forms and what you need to do a register for those workshops to get the full in depth explanation. So we start with the first form and all of these all of these forms are done online through the USACs Erate Productivity Center. This is a place where you have everything you need to do. Stop shopping for the Erate program all your forms that you submit any questions that USAC may ask of you submitting uploading documentation answering questions checking on the status of your form seeing where things are. All of that is done through the Erate Productivity Center their epic system. It is accessed through the Universal Service website. There's two different links there they both say sign in they go to the same place. This is a screenshot from this morning so this is what the page the main page looks like right now. And when you get logged in all of your form you are at the top of the upper right there you'll see some of the ones that I had listed form for 70 is the first one that you submit where you say I want to get some services I'm looking for to have this. This provided to me that being the fiber special construction, the internet service equipment I want to buy whatever. And this is just you know you started funding your 2023 is what we're looking at so talking about this starting up next year. You do as you get further along into the form as I mentioned this is where you do submit that RFP so you're going to have to have your RFP ready first. So work on it with Holly on getting that template and getting that all filled out for you with your libraries info in it, then go and do your 470 and upload that RFP when you get to this point in the form it'll say is there one you say yes. And you just click and drag or drop it the file search for the file there and you just upload that document, along with your 470 and they've got all the details that they need about your project. After you have submitted the 470 you will get notification that it's been done, and it gives you the allowable contract date this is an important date and we're going to get a lot more detail about this. 28 days, or we recommend the 35 days that we'll get to that you have to allow companies, service providers to reach out to you and send you quotes and let you know what they may be able to offer you. Oh, here's that did you want to talk about this year Holly about the. Yeah, this is basically what she's alluding to it's that the fact that if the within 28 days, it's possible that you would. Well, part of this is that there's an addendum if you get a contacted by somebody who's bidding on this and wants to put a bid in and they have a question and it changes the scope of the project. And then you need to basically say, okay, we have to change the scope of the project. And if you do do that, then you have to start all over again. And so you have to, you have to eliminate those number of days that you've been working through this. Already our time is tight. So what we what we recommend is that you go to a 35 day period when you put in your dates as far as when the deadline is for submission for you. People to bid on your project, because then you have a full 28 days that's available. And then the first five days of that. Well, you have 35 days but the first five days are times when people. The bidders can come in and say, ask a question of you. Now you have a responsibility and generally those people come and talk to me, the library director, whomever's in charge of your, your RFP will talk to me but if there's a question that comes in, you need to publicly let everybody know the question and the response within two days. And that's why we've added gone from 28 to 35. We have five extra days for questions and then that's the deadline. No more questions after that. And then we add those two days because the person who they're directing it to say it's the library director she can, or he can, then have two days to respond and put it out publicly. And then we start 28 days. Otherwise you may find yourself having to. Yeah, that's the clock. And so it's really important to do that because what you end up is, on the other end, you're, you can't make the deadline. So, as it says, the FCC rules after your 470 you've got to wait a minimum of 28 days before you can go to the second step in the process, which is telling you right usack. Who you've picked as your provider, you've got to give at least those 28 days. We're recommending do these extra days. So you have that question and answer in case anything makes a major change. I've had it happen the first year that we did special construction. We had several questions that were offered. So it would have been a problem for us. So I definitely believe this is an important piece to do. I guess go forward. And this is in the RFP. There is a section in there about when these things will happen. So you will. And this is what, and I guess I didn't realize we'd move forward, but I guess what I'd like to say about this is this piece is something that almost every library that's submitted their own RFP has come and shown it to me. If they haven't, they come into some kind of trouble. You can see you have to have your dates and times right. And I believe that when the evaluators are looking at the RFP, when it gets back to the you second evaluations, if they're wrong, then they target this type of information. So as you can see in here, really the big one is for the release. And then you want to have your day of questioning correct. And then you want to be sure that we and I take care of this at the commission of the public site where we will post anything that comes to the library from a potential to answer of the question. And then that will go that will be available for anybody else who is thinking about bidding to take a look at and they will know about that also. The deadline itself, as far as the opening of the the actual bids, we, we like to say and I know some libraries don't do this but don't opening any of them until you've actually are on the have passed the deadline. It would be great if you had a time and a date stamp on what you receive. You'll see in the RFP, we don't allow for facts or for emails to be delivered come electronic forms of delivery for the bidders. And that's one reason if you do get something like that you basically have to disregard it but that's written in the RFP so they should know. And then they at that point when you open it, these next items can happen very quickly as far as if you get a, you have a team of reviewers often it's the library director, the library board president, and some of the libraries have worked with a technology teacher to do this with or it could be somebody who's I like the local government to do it. So anyway, you work through all of those and then you're able to award a contract so and then it goes on so if I think I know the time is short. So for bid evaluations, there's, you need to have some type of a rubric because even if you only receive one bid, you might as Becca was saying you may have multiple speeds that you're, you've asked for some type of a response from. And so you'll want to be able to compare those, but I think I've had up to four bids return for a library but oftentimes your bid evaluation is just one, but still, you would be asking for, I recommend at least three different speeds, and so you put a rubric together. And then here is the evaluation sheet that you use to with your review group and the review group gets together, you have a sheet for every one of them, they each fill it out separately, then they come, you all come together and have a discussion. But one of the things you need to know that the, the, the largest weight is put on the actual cost for the fiber that that is the most important weight for the decision making. One thing I do want to say is sometimes you get out of town bids that come in or out of state bids, and there's two things they have to be in good standing with the Nebraska Public Service Commission so you need to be able to find out that. And sometimes you don't want somebody to be working with somebody that's out of town and there is, there are some nuances to evaluations that will help you. It might be something like you'll give 15% or a weight of 15% for a provider who does a survey through your library. So there is some tweaking that can occur. There will be some type of, I do have an example of this in the RFP. So your provider will also see this so they are aware of what their evaluation will be. Part of the, to interject with just network Nebraska, I know we kind of passed that, but in that lengthy 17 page RFP document that we have, we do have some guidelines in there at that. You know, we have requirements where they have to be either within Nebraska or with along the continuous border, because we do have a vendor right now that that was from out of state or out of region that has been problematic. And so we tend to tweak our RFPs to kind of eliminate those as well because we are a lowest and final offer evaluation process only. So that's all. Yeah, I agree. That's much easier. So basically that's the evaluation sheet. You sit together. You make a decision. And then, you know, according to the calendar, the sequence of events, then you let the awardee know. Yes, you are the awardee, but there's no signature of a contract or anything at that point. And as a courtesy, you may also want to let the other then vendors that have applied and let them know that they were not successful in their bid. And I didn't want to go too deep into this because we're way into the process, but be sure that you never sign a contract until you have at least these two paragraphs included in the contract. And what I've done with libraries who've done their own RFP, they either provide the contract to me or I speak with whomever the agent is for the vendor and give them this information to be included into the contract if they need to edit it. Because you need to be sure that you have the funding that's necessary for you to be able to pay for this because, and most of these businesses now after two years of doing this, these ISPs are aware of this. They don't like it, but you do it. Yeah, because even though we're even though we're talking about a great E-rate is and how this funding is out there, it's not a guarantee. There's the applying isn't mean you definitely will get the money, although 99.9% of our libraries do. So this just covers you and we have had some people that are concerned libraries that say, well, I saw I have to sign this contract before I can go on the process but what if I don't know if I'm going to be getting money that's okay you put in this clause. And if the rate doesn't go through, or you choose not to continue with it, that's okay you are not, you know, not like stuck with this company doing this work because you put this in here in your contract. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so this, this is the part that we were talking about earlier with the 10 per up to 10% match, which became part one of the reasons why I think that the libraries have begun to put fiber into, if they are self if they're doing it themselves they're working with Network Nebraska, they're more interested in it because this Nebraska Public Service Commission offers the up to 10% match, and it's a very simple form to fill out. It would take you maybe five minutes to complete and submit to the once you've selected who you're going to be working with, because there are some questions that relate to you know the pricing etc. I could submit this to, and I have the email address it may change at this point but with a public service commission, and they evaluated I've never denied any request at this point and I don't think that they will. That would be what you need to do, and then once you have that form completed, and you get a receipt letter from the public service commission saying, yes we're going to award you this amount of money that, along with your contract goes back. Talk to Chris or you work through a form 471 and you submit to through epic to for your E rate, and then there's you go on yeah because you've got all the stuff about. Yep, yep, that's what's coming up next. Yep. Yeah, so this is the link to submit to the public service commission. And as it's all online as I said quick and easy. Whoops. There you go. You do need to include your copy of your 470 that can be printed out as a PDF from your Epic count I can help you do that. And the bid response, the, that you have picked who you've picked to be your service provider used to include both of those. And that's what Holly's emailing when you do this application. Sometime hopefully in January, the commission you'll get a little email from them saying here's your award letter, and you need that letter in order to do the next step in the E rate process the 471. The first step is to do your 470 second step pick your provider and sign your contract submit that information to the public service commission, then wait for them to say yes you've been awarded that their funding, then go on to the next E rate step which is the 471. Oh, and this is what I was just talking about. Yeah, so you have to wait that 20 days slash 35 days to before you can do this step. Have your contract done and signed get that award letter if you're doing the special construction and the 471 can also only be done during the specific application filing window this is important you can't just do it whenever you want to it's actually doesn't isn't even available until this window opens up. That's usually sometime mid January to mid March. The dates are usually announced by the near the end of December. So, even if you get through all of this up to this step and you've got your award letter you're ready to go you've got to wait for us to open up the window. When those dates are announced I will put an announcement out and let everyone know when it's coming. You do get an email directly from E rate letting you know when you've reached that 28 days that allowable contract date this is great and email is sent right to you and a notice is sent to you in your epic account. So if you can't remember when was that date did it come yet did it reach it yet they will proactively ping you and send you a message saying hey it's time to go on you can go on to the next step now. Your 471 is also done epic right up there at the top of the page right next to the link for the 470. After you have submitted the 471, then it goes to being reviewed by us that their program integrity assurance department handles that they will double check everything on the form make sure it's all correct. They will possibly probably have questions for you will receive notifications from PIA reviewer. I can help you answer any of those questions. So if you do receive something you're not sure what the heck it says I can translate for you and help you answer their questions that oftentimes has to be done. After they're done with their review and if they are they will then send you a your funding commitment decision letter FCDL. This is where it lets you know if you've been funded or not. It's like you get funded for example this year for 2022. All of the libraries all of them not libraries in Nebraska that applied were funded. Nobody was denied. So you'll get an actual email. Also sent directly to you saying when a decision letter available and it will be an attachment a PDF attachment where you can just click on that and open up and see if you've been awarded and how much you might get more than one of these depending on how many applications you've done things you can do multiple 470s and 471s depending on how you're organizing things. But just pay attention to what is said in that letter. As soon as you receive this funding commitment decision letter, you immediately go on to the next form you're 46 your. This is where many libraries lose it in the process. They get this letter and they say yay we've been funded. I'm good I did it. No, this is just use that saying we have set aside this money for you. You still have to say you want the money. So you have to send a form back to them 486 also in your Epic account saying yes I want to receive it. And everything you need for this form is easy you don't need to attach anything special you're not uploading any documents to this like with the previous ones with the award letter and your RFP you it's just all included in there in this in the system and it auto fills you just got to kind of click through and say yes yes yes this is all correct. It's also at the top of the page 46 same place we found your other two forms. And that is immediately sent in as I did mention I was talking about attaching when you do your 471. I did say you do just have to include that award letter that we place to upload that into there so the 471 you do attach extra documents to 46 you just click through and submit it. Would you have to attach the signed contract also. The contract would go with the 471. Right, yes. Yeah, the contract yep they'll be a place they will say what's the conflict where's the contract yep. Yep the 471 has the contract and the award letter and there's special questions that ask you about that it kind of prompts you through it it's really slick now because they've got this is the special funding special construction funding is something set up by USAC for you right and then the special questions that actually ask you and prompt you to do that. That's, that's nice. The only other thing I was thinking about is, once you receive that funding letter you can, you should contact your award bitter and let them know to begin the process of building. That's, that's what they need to, to know is when to start and I think that there's some type of a work order that they put together, but that happens before the 486. Well, no the 46 is when you submit the 46, they can't do anything until you do the 46. That has that is what tells when you submit that a notice goes to the end and notices automatically sent from e-rate to whoever your service provider was that yeah, let him know you did submit that and then they know they can start working on. What's what's their next step for starting the kind of the construction. I know, but I think it seems to me it's kind of weird but I thought I had had some libraries contact me when they received they hadn't, they had notification they hadn't but submitted their 486 yet there was construction going on but. They are saying we have had that happen. Yeah, I didn't have a library said yet that they forget which one it was where the company just started to do construction and a lot. But I don't know if this is actually happening yet what do you think you're doing. And they will you know they have their schedule they need to be on and they can start this, they can start the construction anytime after January 1 of the year that you're starting to get the service. And then they'll be, and then the funding the discounts can be applied for any construction done after January 1 when the service is going to start that July. But if they need to start working on something before this is all processed through that's on them. If there's no if even if the funny commit decision letter hasn't come through yet. You know you have that in the contract that that phrase about this will not go through unless we are approved and it go and we do all of the E rate. Well, we do not have to honor this contract so that covers you to when they if they decide you know we got start construction in February. We don't care that you haven't done all these forms yet. This is just our schedule for doing work and you, it's okay. You know if this falls through you choose not to follow through with all the E rate stuff. You're not responsible and liable for anything because you've put that in the contract first. Yeah, the same company who actually Becky Henkel from Baird Public Library is on our guest library person today to talk to you there are one of the first year special construction. She had that happen with the company and also Kimball Public Library but it's the same company they just build no matter what so and they built to the, oh Becky is here. They built to the building. And there's a little I think there's a little bit of anxiety she can probably share that when she speaks. Because I'm like, they're in town there. They're digging up the record and I have it, you know, but it all worked out good. You know worked out the end. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So, after you do get that 46 in and let us know yes we want the money. Then you have to the last step you have to do is figure out decide how you want to get your discounts. You have an option of either having your bills automatically discounted by the service provider. If that's the case, you, they submit the last form to usack for erate. We highly recommend this. It's much easier that your bills just come discounted and you don't have to worry about anything else. But if they can't or it's just not something that works, you can do you do the bear form build entity applicant reimbursement form, which is where you pay the bills in full and then you set reimburses you. So you would do this form if that's going to be the case. It's a directory and version from usack. They do a direct deposit into the library's bank account. And there's just one extra form that you submit once. The 498 to give them that banking account information similar to doing your direct deposit for any of your paychecks and so those kind of things. And then that would be the end of doing the process then hopefully your fibers installed and it works. So, for this step here. You might, your last form of the process of the library may be the 46, maybe the 46, if your service providers going to discount your bills, you stop at 46, they do this part. If they aren't discounting it, you do this part, then you're done. So it actually looks like Becky is up next. So, thanks for coming Becky and we have Becky from the very public library who was in the first year of our special construction applications and successfully had a fiber brought to her library and she also included doing that because sometimes your infrastructure in your library. You can receive the fiber at the wall or the door as you might say but it may not be able to run at that speed in the interior of your library due to your network equipment and other kinds of issues related to the network. She also applied for a category to erate category two to help to be able to utilize her speed that she had requested from her provider. So Becky, I'm going to let you just chat a little bit. Well, we are. I didn't have any of the equipment that was going to work because so I got some help from service unit 13 and he came down and checked everything out for me and let me know what exactly I would need and and so we work together and you then you have to do a whole another RFP for that. So it was good to have somebody to double check all that with as well. The only thing different is he also installed my stuff on the inside for me as well. So I didn't have to do a bit for having the work done inside but I guess you can do that. The good thing about having someone else do it, you're not on their time frame because when they're doing it out of the kindness of their heart, you know, it's like a little different than somebody that's getting paid to do the work. Because that makes. So, yeah. Um, my missing anything there. It made a world of difference. Having the fiber to the library. I remember when we tried to do our summer reading program through zoom on sharing it with kids, you know, at at home and stuff and they were doing their summer school that year that way as well. Half the time, you know, you're talking away and all of a sudden, you didn't know but you've lost internet. So there you set and you have to try again. So then you'd be going again and then you'd lose it again and they'd say I can't hear you. And it was horrible. And after we got the fiber to town, we're the only one in Baird that has the fiber and I have a lot of people that will come in just to do their getting their email or send something out because it's so much more dependable to them than even their home internet that they have, which is pretty slow here in Baird. There's times when the bank doesn't have internet, the convenience store, or even when our city office, it goes out but yet the library still has it because we have the fiber. So you have another provider there in town, but this so you're using a different provider for your internet. Yes, we went with somebody that actually can only provide to government and government places or so they can't offer it to the residents. Yeah, it's a middle mile. Yeah. Yep. Yep. So and they actually came under the railroad tracks down the main street, you know through the alley. They did all that. Surprisingly, everybody was real good to work with I think, and I believe our school, they were locked into some kind of a contract, but I think they're going to try to maybe get the same that we have up to. Yeah. Yeah. Well, the other thing she's not admitting to is that she told me when we, I was talking to her about, you know, an open house. And she said, she said, well, I said, well, you could even get the governor to come. And she goes, I'm going to get the governor to come. I literally got the governor to come landed his helicopter out there and his, you know, his aide came in and all the school kids came down from school and sat in the library. It was packed and he was up there putting on a bit of a show and it was really something. No, don't, don't tell Becky you can't do something. I guess. I really appreciated her being. She in fact, I have to say, Kimball Public Library had been under the impression that the RFP was something that they had to self initiate and they didn't quite understand it. And somehow she was having a conversation. Is it amber is that I think it's any yeah, and she was having a conversation and found out, oh my gosh, no, it's already done for you. So there she fired it off and worked with Krista and got in under the wire to get to get fiber to Kimball Public Library. So also a word of mouth or so I'm really appreciative and thanks for coming today. I don't know if there are any questions or anything anybody has audience or whatever. It seems very overwhelming all at once. And being a small library I think there's, I'd say 90% of my time here I'm alone, as far as a full worker, except for the summer you know I usually get like an intern. Thanks to Chris and the library commission. So, but it's worth it. It really is worth it and once you get started. You just want to keep going so that because you can just can almost fill or taste what's going to come with it. And I don't regret it one minute. It was a lot of work, but it was so worth it. I think what I think to me when I when I walk into a library that's got fiber, I feel energy. You know, it's not signs hanging over desktop computers doesn't work doesn't work. Oh, no, we don't have enough speed to do that. You know, there's no, it's just go forward, which is, you know, the reliability of your service is and fast service. We started having teachers come down and do training here at the library, just so that they could use, you know, the high speed, and we have a TV, you know, that has the camera for zoom and stuff. And it's nice to know that we can help out, you know, as much as we can. Okay. Yeah. Does anybody have any questions. If you have any questions you can unmute yourself and ask if not we can. That's okay. All right. Well, thank you very much Becky. Oh, yeah. Yeah, Kimble that was the one I was trying to remember earlier that when we were talking about the deadlines that we have that we can work with you and the public service commission can work with you if you're worried that you're not up to those deadline that you're able to keep up with those deadlines just yet. That was like in like a January, February of the year waiting for we got things done and just, you know, connected with public service commission they said yes get the application to us we'll get the letter out to them boom boom boom, and they got it. And they're very happy. That's great. Okay, well thank you again Becky for being stellar and being here. Take care. Thank you for all you do for us. Okay. Bye bye. Okay, so this is just kind of giving you the wide variety of pricing that happens with the with fiber installations and library eight I did not know the distance. I don't know all the content, the reply from the RFP to know that but I did know the pricing of it. So, if you look at this and in some cases you know I, I don't know any library I don't feel like there's any library that's spent over. I don't know three or $4,000 paying themselves maybe there were some that were closer to 10, you know, but, but yeah it's amazing. And this is the total cost. So you would not be paying this at all. This is what erate covered would cover 8090 potentially depending on your 100% percent of the cost. Yeah. If you're at 80% discount or above you would get this entirely covered. Right, the extra special with the extra funding coming from the public service commission. Exactly. That's just a highlight of some information. So, move forward. So we move on and, and this is this is all about just go to the next slide. Basically, this is just talking about the money that's out there for and the programs that are out there that are available to libraries and communities. In category two, we're going to be doing a third workshop on that. November the ninth in the afternoon. As you heard from Becky, basically with the assessment that the Ben did at the library she needed significant pieces of equipment, but again she used her category to the discount. And I think that would have been 80% for her I can't remember exactly was either 70 or 80. And so she had a significant diff discount on even purchasing network equipment to help to bring in there was 80% discount. Yes. Yeah. And then the second item is the legislative bill 388 which is the Nebraska broadband bridge bridge grant. And I don't. I think that it's the last allocation of funding from the legislature for that. But it's amazing they had 110 applicants and so if you're a community, even that has even received the, you know, the possibility that they're going to be going to be awarded this funding that would mean if the libraries was within the center that this identified as what they're going to connect everything up to which would be businesses, libraries and residential. That's great, but I've had a couple of cases that I've talked to of community or for libraries who've said that they were going to be connected to this. And they were excited about it and they weren't interested in doing the special construction because of that. And it turned out. There's quite a bit of competition with providers in the state and I guess, depending, I don't know a lot about this, but with the public service commission, they had they get to say by a provider. No, they can't do that because this is our domain and then they have to go at it. And if the original one who says it's theirs is able to keep it then that grant funding it doesn't go to that community. And they're like I said I know of two or three of them but one of them in particular had a library director there. She was so excited and so was her city administrator, but then it came in the the other ISP came in and kind of foiled all that situation. So that tells you at the tail that Kristen I were talking about this morning and Christa can say it because she said it well. The part about you know don't don't count on something. Yeah, there's all of these programs available, but even with the rate nothing is a guarantee. So it's good to have options, you know, get yourself in line for anything that might be available that could get fiber to the library and get the speed faster because you never know what you might think is coming. And then suddenly gets, you know, the rug gets pulled out from under you. Yeah. So the last bullet is about need and this is the funding that's just becoming available and this announcement is going on and stayed in Nebraska related to how much funding is going to be available. But one thing in this, this headline here the special construction would fall under the bead grant area. I believe and part of the issue there is actually libraries or anchor institutions which include libraries. They are the third allocation for the funding of first it's unserved which would be under 12 megabits communities and then that's to 24, I believe, and then from their 24 megabits is the second allocation of the funding, and then finally they talk about anchor institutions like libraries. So we really even though that's a lot of money that's this is the allocation for the not for the state but for the country it and there is a significant amount coming it's, it still may not make it to libraries. So again, it's the same thing, you know, you know, sure thing, you may be thinking, oh wow, this will make it to me now, but it may not. So that's just some, some sources of funding to be thinking about, we still feel like the special construction is a pretty good deal with the help of the library commission and network Nebraska so And even as I'm looking through this and I'm thinking about you know this is all a lot of these are about getting broadband to the communities and to to you. So once it's there, having it in your building, you need to have the equipment that can run it. And that's what that category to that first item is for for the libraries. You can get a discount on purchasing and upgrading all of your in house the physical equipment that runs your network and your cabling and everything. You're going to need. We've had this before where a library has done did. I remember, I've been doing irate for a long time. They got the internet upgraded but then their physical equipment couldn't handle the new speed. They were paying faster speed but then the equipment was too old to handle that amount of speed. So then the next year they had to go back and say okay now we need to upgrade all of our equipment and now yeah we can finally use this that we got. Right, and that's happened to several libraries and in fact, those that are maybe working with their city and their city for the funding, and they get their fiber. Depending on who's working with them, they may not be utilizing their, their full capability because nobody's helping them on the inside with the infrastructure of the library so. Yeah, I think that, you know, again on November 9 we in the afternoon we'll be talking about category two funding. So, and this, this is our promotion for that, you know this, these are just some self reported bullets here about what we, we libraryed libraries have reported back in their library survey for infrastructure and for technical assistance. And Kristen may know more about this but that the basically we're in the third year I believe of a five year $25,000 that are available for libraries to access for category two. It's not a chunk of money so it's not like once this one's done you can't get it it'll just start over again with a new five year but. But it's amazing to me $25,000 for a small roll library is, is a significant amount of, you know, that could really go far and join us so. And then, as I mentioned earlier. E rate workshops that I'm doing, as I said, this was a very quick high level of how E rate works. I have my regular annual workshops that I do what's new for 2023 so this will be the end second half of November I've got four different one scheduled it's the same workshop time you have to do four different workshops at all, I just repeating it to be at various times and dates so everyone can have a chance to attend have something they can attend. So you can go on our library commissions training and events calendar and just do a search for E rate 2023 and you will find all of them. I'm not sure if whichever one works for you. I'll also mention which I should have added in here too, because as I'm thinking about the scheduling and the timing of all this my workshops are going to be in November, but later in October. This year, this month, you sack has their own workshops that they are doing online webinars, a series of them so also if you look at our library commissions E rate webpage. You'll find links to their webinars that are happening this month. If you want to go to some of theirs ahead of mine and learn more about E rate they've got a six or eight of them. And I think the one thing we didn't mention too is that Krista when it comes time to some to be submitting these forms. She's available, you know, get sent her a shooter an email, let her know that you're that you need some help doing something on an epic or want her to work along with you just to make sure it's right. She will be happy to do that and does a great job with that. And one thing I did, like you said about the timing for your workshops. It's almost getting late for somebody who is working on the special construction to do that so it's good to know that there's another option, or there's the Krista option. It's just my workshops are this every year I mine are done after I also attend all of the E rate one, all of usax to see if there's anything new I need to know before I then also do mine. So I have to wait for theirs to be done then I schedule mine. So I'm kind of, you know, I don't have a. I can like I said, but, um, and, you know, special constructions a whole special thing. So this is also as far as the E rate schedule is, as I said, you know, even that second form the 471 came and do that until next January in January anyways so this is okay. So I'm not saying that you know that I understood why you were doing that I shouldn't have said it in that that way but but basically. Yeah, so I think it's important here in the year to and everything is kind of gets delayed. I don't know. So, okay, well, I guess if there aren't any questions or if there are questions. Yeah, this is our contact info. If you have any questions unmute and you can ask. I'll keep an eye on that. Otherwise, yes, this is our contact info you can reach out to any of us myself Holly or Becca with questions about our particular parts of this. You're interested in receiving an RFP you can just email me or the the library initiated RFP. And I'll get it sent to you. I'd like to have a conversation usually with folks or through email or on the phone about it, but prior to sending sending it and shipping it off to you but. And Becca to the end here. Just time available for questions. And let me know as soon as possible if you do want to jump on to our state are. Yes, and and that's the yeah if you want to get involved in that yeah that probably your first thing to do right now is reach out to Becca and say yes we'd like to be involved in yours here's what do you need for me so she can get you involved in that. Then reach out to me and Holly about getting involved in the library commissions one, you can do both of these at the same time have them both going both options and then decide in the end, which one you're going to follow through with one or the other, or either. Yeah, we encourage. Signing up to have a network Nebraska options. Yeah, have take advantage of all your options options out there yeah. All right looks like we don't have any questions right now that's okay already. All right. Thank you everybody and hopefully we'll see you on November 9 at our third workshop in this series on. There we all sign up for that one next. Thanks.